More than 5,000 police personnel in the State will undergo training in investigating cyber crime at the newly upgraded Centre for Cyber Crime Investigation Training and Research (CCITR) at the CID headquarters in Bengaluru.
Funded by the Infosys Foundation, it will be a resource centre for digital forensics, forensic investigation support, malware research, legal and policy research, said officials.
The centre was inaugurated on Thursday by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy. In addition to training police personnel, the centre will be open to students from various institutes who can undergo training in the detection of cyber crime.
Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murty said that the foundation will be providing ₹22 crore for providing various facilities and maintaining the centre for a period of five years.
“After signing an MoU with the authorities and Data Security Council of India (DSCI), in 60 days the new facilities were built as per the prescribed standards. The centre will rope in expertise from industries and educational institutions, and also send police personnel for training abroad,” she said at the inauguration on Thursday.
There has been a spike in the number of perpetrators preying on citizens from 2,000 cases registered in 2017 to 5,200 in 2018. These include online financial fraud and data theft. The newly opened facilities will provide advanced training to police personnel to tackle such cases, said Home Minister M.B. Patil, while talking about the challenge cyber crime poses to safety and security of citizens.
He added that in the face of an increase in the number of fake messages circulating on social media, the State government has already urged the Union government to direct the management of social media platforms to cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
“Currently, it takes 72 hours for social media platforms to remove misleading messages after police take up the matter with them. By the time messages are removed, the damages has already been done. There is a need for early redressal system,” he said.
DGP (CID) Praveen Sood said that they have been working with the DSCI to train police personnel for over a decade. “Earlier, we could train 20 personnel but now [with the new centre], we can train 100 people at a time. The training will be given at two levels. In addition to training police personnel, training will also be given to prosecutors and judges,” he said.
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More personnel in rural areas
To ease the burden at police stations in rural areas and expedite investigations, additional sub-inspectors will be deployed at each police station.
“At present, one SI is doing both crime investigation and the job of maintaining law and order. To increase efficiency, two PSIs will be provided for each stations. One will take up crime investigation while other will handle law and order. The Finance Department has approved the Home Department’s proposal,” Mr. Patil said.
The minister said that more than 800 PSIs will be recruited for the purpose.
